In yet another round of "with friends like this, who needs enemies,' Pennsylvania Republican Party Chairman Rob Gleason had this to say about Mitt Romney:
“A lot of people see him as a moderate, not a conservative. You know what’s nice about him? He can be anything you want him to be. I don’t know why he hasn’t connected better, but we still have 35 days.
Ummm, Rob? A lot of people haven't connected with Romney
for the exact reason you mentioned.
It's always refreshing to see that Republican officials see nothing wrong with coming right out and admitting that their candidate stands for nothing. True, Gleason is not as colorful a phrase-turner as Romney senior advisor Eric Fehrnstrom, who last March delivered his famous Etch-A-Sketch comment:
“I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch a Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and we start all over again.”
But give Gleason credit for adding fresh brushstrokes to the portrait of Romney as a man of no principles. Indeed, the interview in the link above with Gleason provided new fodder for a number of GOP failures. Take this bit:
And though having Romney surrogates such as son Tagg or wife Ann stump for the candidate is useful, Gleason said the campaign will have to see an opening before deciding to send Romney repeatedly.
“The wife is important, but look, we all know, we need him to come back,” he said. “We need him to decide to play here and we’re doing everything we can to make sure that happens.”
That's right. He said "the wife." Not Ann Romney. Not Ann. Not even Mitt Romney's wife. Just "the wife," which pretty much encapsulates Republican attitudes toward women.
Or how about this one:
Asked about a recent internal party poll that conflicts with most independent polls because it showed Romney within a point of Obama, Gleason launched into a fervent defense of the poll’s author, Jim Lee, president of Susquehanna Polling and Research in Harrisburg.
“We've been using him for 15 years,” Gleason said. “I pay him a lot of money and he’s not going to give me the wrong result.”
Yes, he was referring to the recent
Susquehanna Research poll that showed Romney withing a point or two of Obama in Pennsylvania, despite every other poll showing Obama leading by a much wider margin. Yes, he was referring to the poll done for right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife's newspaper The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the poll done by the Pennsylvania GOP's favorite polling company.
So yes, the poll is contradicted by every other shred of evidence. The poll was commissioned by a right-wing billionaire. The poll was done by the GOP's own polling outfit. But we should believe it because the Pennsylvania GOP "pays him a lot of money."
Because in Republican minds, nothing speaks truth like money.